Once upon a time, many years ago, a baby was born.  And anytime a baby is born, from a little one come to the world in a dark, one room hut, his mother squatting on a dirt floor while she pushes . . . to the little one whose mother felt no pain as trained medical professionals closely supervised his birth, then whisked him into the warmth of a baby warmer …. Read More

When Miracles Fly Thick Matthew 1:18–25  If you’ve been around Calvary for any length of time you certainly have heard me talk in sermons about reading books to my kids when they were little.  Some of my best memories were made curled up on the couch, holding one or all of them close, and reading: Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia…it never ceased to amaze me how they could sit and listen… Read More

One of my favorite parts of being a pastor is the conversations that often begin in the pulpit and continue through email.  Think, engage the text, wonder about your faith . . . and let’s talk about it!  Here’s an email conversation from this week. Hi Amy, I was talking with a friend after church today and wanted some clarification so she said i should email you.  It’s not about John the… Read More

Wholeness: Piece by Piece Matthew 11:2-11 I grew up surrounded by a very large extended family.  My earliest memories of Christmas include the annual family Christmas party to which every distant relative within a reasonable distance would come.  The highlight of the party every year was the arrival of Santa Claus, which, while extraordinarily exciting the first few years of my memory, admittedly got a little bit, well, contrived, the older I… Read More

A Revolutionary Peace Matthew 3:1-12  The waiting has begun…can you feel Advent in the air, a sense of hope and expectation, the allowing for a possibility that God’s dream for our world might be unfolding all around us?  Today, the second Sunday of Advent, our ideal world, the world God intends for us, is a world of peace. In other words, it’s a world nothing like where we live now, where wars… Read More

Beloved Calvary member, Sallie Tupitza, who died November 23, 2010, was remembered today in a private family service.  A service of thanksgiving and celebration for her life, which will include our whole community, will be held at a later date to be announced.  What follows is the short homily offered today. When I was a child growing up in Hawaii my parents would send me every summer to stay with my grandparents… Read More